Years ago at BYU, while I was taking an American Usage course, Prof. Don Norton recommended that the class read the J.B. Phillips’s “The New Testament in Modern English.” Prof. Norton commented on the clarity and the beauty of the translation. Curious, I picked up a copy and in the process of reading it, became a bit of a fan.

In my experience, this translation of the New Testament comes in especially handy when reading the words of Paul. Readers may want to take an epistle chapter from the King James Version and then afterwards read the same chapter in the J.B. Phillips translation. I think anyone who does this with a few chapters will see the value of the exercise.

In a separate effort, J.B. Phillips also translated some sections of the Old Testament. Specifically, he translated Amos, Hosea, Micah and the first thirty-five chapters of Isaiah. At some point these translations were published together in a book titled “Four Prophets.”

While it is out of print, I was able to find a copy for sale online and with shipping it didn’t cost more than $10. It also appears the full text of it is online here, though the formatting of the document leaves something to be desired.

I am currently perusing this book for the first time and only have first impressions to go by. I have been focusing on the translation of the Isaiah chapters – since so many of these chapters coincide with the Isaiah chapters quoted in the Book of Mormon.

There are certainly a number of places where the language of the translation leaps off the page. His translation of Isaiah 1:21 reads:

“See what a slut the city has become
She who was once so true,
She who was just in all her ways!
Once a home of righteousness, now a haunt of murderers.”

Then compare it to the KJV, which reads:

How is the faithful city become an harlot!
it was full of judgment;
righteousness lodged in it;
but now murderers.

His English rendering of the name of Isaiah’s son “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” comes out as “Quick-pickings-Easy-prey.” Our KJV notes on this name translate this as “to speed to the spoil” and “he hasteneth to the prey.”

Phillips’s translation of Isaiah 14:11, which deals with the end of a particular tyrant, reads:

“Your glory is brought down to the underworld
With all your sounds of music.
A mattress of maggots lies ready
With a blanket of worms to cover you.”

Again, compare to the KJV which reads:

Thy pomp is brought down to the grave,
and the noise of thy viols:
the worm is spread under thee,
and the worms cover thee.

In making these comparisons, it does not seem to me that the Isaiah passages in the KJV are so difficult to understand. But it does seem that maybe J.B. Phillips clarifies and focuses the picture for us a little bit better – and because Phillips uses modern English, the ‘bite’ of the imagery is sharper.

In that regard, J.B. does us a service – but it is not as great a service as the one he provides in regards to understanding Paul’s epistles, which are, in my opinion, more difficult (than Isaiah) to comprehend in the KJV. Maybe what we are hoping for with Isaiah is less of a clearer translation and are more in need of someone who can explain and expand on the text.

This doesn’t mean that the J.B. Phillips translation of Isaiah chapters isn’t useful – it’s just that in the first place we are dealing with a different sort of problem.

Besides the translation itself – “Four Prophets” comes with a “translator’s preface” which is quite interesting and insightful in many ways. Phillips is plain about his lack of comfort with the Hebrew language. He seems to be more confident with translating Greek and provides his reasons for feeling this way. Readers may want to follow the link provided above to the online text – where one can read the whole preface. But to us as Mormons, there was one particular section which I thought was of particular interest (on page xiv):

… if we were certain of the original Hebrew manuscripts it would not prove impossible. But unfortunately (and this fact is apparently little known to many devout readers of the Bible) in many instances no one knows for certain what is the original text. Sometimes the text is “defective”, which means that some words or words are missing, and sometimes it is “corrupt”, which means that later hands have altered, or made additions to, the original writing so that no one now knows what it was. Literally millions of man-hours must have been spent by the experts in comparing and evaluating the available material, and our debt to them is incalculable. And even when their work is, for the moment, done, there remains the frequently conflicting opinions of the commentators.”

Hmmm….I’ve sort of shunned this type of translation of the Bible. To me, it seems to trivialize the scripture. But if you read both of these few examples you cite, it would be a little hard to pick which one is the translation and which is the original. Both seem poetic and rich. I guess it’s the use of the word “you.”

I just finished reading the New Testament and this time, was particularly impressed with the words of Paul. I’m sort of bigoted against him because of his apparent chauvinism (almost mysogyny!) and in the past have read him with personal dislike and sort of skimmed, while reading every word. Which seems contradictory, but it can be done.

Can you put some of Paul’s words here, juxtaposed with the translation?

This time, what struck me was Paul’s effort, over and over again, to teach the saints of that time about grace v works. It’s such a tight rope we all walk there and I could see echoes of our gospel in what he was trying to say.

I think if you read J.B. Phillips – you will find that he was not trying to trivialize scripture at all. He was sincerely working to make the scriptures understandable to modern readers – particularly youth.

Thanks for the pointer to Phillips’ NT work. I also find that Paul in the KJV is (for me) harder to follow than Isaiah in the KJV; I’ve been listening to random chapters of the New Testament on my iPhone, and I have to concentrate very hard when Paul’s epistles come up. From what I’ve seen over at the website, Phillips’ NT language is very clear without trying to be trendy or contemporary. ..bruce..

As far as trivializing, I don’t know where that feeling comes from, may be it’s the “you” instead of “thee.” It’s just a personal taste, like how I don’t like raisins.

Daniel, I’m going to look up (unless I entirely forget you exist) some of those scriptures by Paul that I found compelling. Will you put the translation next to them? I’ll just do a couple. I want to see if it makes a difference.

Annegb, I saw your comment and I’ve been thinking about how invested I want to get into making the Paul comparisons. When I say that, I just mean that I’m thinking about doing a very serious effort to go through the Pauline epistles, verse by verse, and do a comparison. But I’m not sure I’m ready to put in that kind of time right now. Just something I’m thinking about.

Paul often used complicated sentence structures, so it’s easy for me to get lost when his sentences cover more than one verse.

Also, the KJV translators didn’t do well with idioms, in both the OT and NT, but moreso in the OT. The KJV is a “literal” translation, and so unless you know Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic idioms, or the cultural references of the time, the meaning gets lost.

Plus, the KJV translators just didn’t know Hebrew as well as Greek. There are way too many footnotes in the LDS OT edition where you absolutely have to see the footnote to get a correct idea of what’s going on. Look at all the “OR”, “IE” or “HEB” footnotes in the OT.

I often keep a Parallel Bible handy when reading the OT. Usually the NIV or the NASB will clarify the KJV OT if the LDS footnotes (OR/IE/HEB) don’t. And sometimes, those still aren’t enough, and I go to a “paraphrase” bible, like the Jerusalem Bible, to get one more clue if the NIV and NASB aren’t in agreement.

But there’s nothing inherently wrong with paraphrase Bibles. You just have to be careful what spin the translators are using. The Living Bible (and its update the “New Living Translation” NLT) are not too good in my opinion.

Our devotion to the KJV is odd, and teaches our members that they should look on a ny other translating with suspicion. I wonder how much of our love of the KJV is due to the Book of Mormon using the KJV of bible scriptures that it quotes. If we started to read another bible would people freak out that the BoM wouldn’t match up anymore?

Thanks for this post. As you know, I’ve written extensively about the burden we bear do the LDS church continued insistence on using the KJV. J. B. Phillips translation is both lucid and beautiful in its simplicity (here and here)

God wants us to love and understand the scriptures, and in the 21st century the LDS church’s obstinate insistence on using the KJV prevents this in much the same way that The Church of England’s refusal to publish an English translation did before King James.

I can see it both ways. I generally love the language of the KJV, but probably because I love old literature including Shakespeare.

I love the free website http://www.biblegateway.com because it contains ALL the versions of the Bible in English and many other languages. This has helped me to have gospel conversations with friends of other denominations because then I can “see” how their version reads and then share with them a different version so we can all learn from it.

When we started the OT again in Sunday School this year, I looked on the web for new but trustworthy sources to study with for free (due to unemployment and not just natural thrift.) This great teacher for a stake adult religion class in Hurricane, Utah puts up his class notes, PowerPoints and gives article links to his classes. It was a treasure trove!http://sites.google.com/site/hwsarc/system/app/pages/subPages?path=/home/ot

I highly recommend week 2’s class notes on why we should use a couple of other versions for study along with the KJV to get more information. He recommends the NIV in a certain publishing and the New English Translation(NET)which is available free for download at nextbible.org.http://sites.google.com/site/hwsarc/home/ot/week02

This same concept has really helped an long-inactive sister I fellowship in my ward.
She never read the scriptures after her convert baptism and then went inactive.
She isn’t used to the structure of either the Bible or the Book of Mormon.
Buying her a simpler version of the BoM really helped her come to love it enough
to read it another time in the original. I don’t think it hurts to have these extra versions as long as we refer to the “official” ones also for more insight as our understanding grows and matures “line upon line”.

Annegb, I saw your comment and I’ve been thinking about how invested I want to get into making the Paul comparisons. When I say that, I just mean that I’m thinking about doing a very serious effort to go through the Pauline epistles, verse by verse, and do a comparison. But I’m not sure I’m ready to put in that kind of time right now. Just something I’m thinking about.

You know, I absolutely think we need to open our minds to other translations. They are not all inherently evil. In fact, I just read this morning the passage in the Book of Mormon about “A Bible, A Bible…we need no other…” Wisdom can be found in *all* the best books. What qualifies one translation better than another? That is somewhat subjective, though I do believe there’s a reason for our canonical King James version. But I just can’t agree more that other plainer translations can help loosen up and broaden our perspective, and allow us to understand things in different ways. It’s actually exciting if you think about it.

I believe that reading scripture is like boating across the ocean, but memorizing scripture is like sinking deep and comprehending the whole depth. When scripture is committed to memory, it’s there when we need it – in the middle of the night when our minds are bombarded with attacks of the evil one. We are armed to fight back with the sword of Word. I found that memorizing J B Phillips’ scripture was easier than any other. He was a master of the English language and a member of the literary club of C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Lewis encouraged him to complete the New Testament.